So what do you do when you fail to elect your chosen candidate and your former political allies and mainstream media turn against you by painting you not as the 'progressive', open-minded, friendly tech company that you used to be but as an evil, racist, Russian-colluding corporate villain intent upon destroying all that is sacred in the world? Well, you just buy the media, of course.

As Poynter
notes today, after a series of public relations debacles in recent
weeks, from the firing of James Damore to news last week that Google's
algos served up some fairly disturbing keywords to potential advertising
buyers (e.g. "Why Do Black People Ruin Neighborhoods"), Google
is ramping up its media presence with the announcement that the Google
News Lab will be working with Report For America (RFA) to hire 1,000
journalists all around the country.

Many local newsrooms have been cut to the bone so often
that there's hardly any bone left. But starting early next year, some
may get the chance to rebuild, at least by one.

On Monday, a new project was announced at the
Google News Lab Summit that aims to place 1,000 journalists in local
newsrooms in the next five years. Report For America takes
ideas from several existing organizations, including the Peace Corps,
Americorps, Teach for America and public media.

Unlike foreign or domestic service programs or public media, however, RFA gets no government funding.
But they are calling RFA a national service project. That might make
some journalists uncomfortable â the idea of service and patriotism.
But at its most fundamental, local journalism is about protecting
democracy, said co-founder Charles Sennott, founder and CEO of the
GroundTruth Project.

"I think journalism needs that kind of passion for
public service to bring it back and to really address some of the
ailments of the heart of journalism," he said.

Here's how RFA will work: On one end, emerging
journalists will apply to be part of RFA. On the other, newsrooms will
apply for a journalist. RFA will pay 50 percent of that
journalist's salary, with the newsroom paying 25 percent and local
donors paying the other 25 percent. That reporter will work in the local newsroom for a year, with the opportunity to renew.

Of course, while the press release above tries to tout the shared
financial responsibility of these 1,000 journalists, presumably as a
testament to their 'independence', it took about 35 seconds to figure
out that the primary funder of the journalists' salaries, RFA, is funded by none other than Google News Lab.

Meanwhile, as a further testament to RFA's 'independence, we noticed
that their Advisory Board is flooded with reputable, 'impartial' news
organizations like the New York Times, NPR, CBS, ABC, etc....